


It's Only Love

by cousinrayray



Series: Rick'n'Morty Songfic Train [1]
Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Can you believe it?, F/M, School-age-Rick, Songfic, Young Love, and no incest, awkward rick, i cant, omg het
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-30 01:18:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12643194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cousinrayray/pseuds/cousinrayray
Summary: Rick Sanchez was the smartest kid in the world, and he was smarter than love.Improbable first in what will be a never-ending series of songfics.





	It's Only Love

**Author's Note:**

> The songfics are coming guys. I tried to hold out, but bits and pieces of various ones just kept getting written here and there and now there's one that's finished. It can happen to anyone. 
> 
> Enjoy, folks!

He was going to get her back. He was the smartest kid that had ever passed through Delaney Middle School, that would _ever_ pass through his middle school, and he was capable of anything, much less wooing one girl. 

Even if it was Charlene Bowater. He stiffened as she passed by his locker with a gaggle of friends, shooting him a cool glare. 

He sneered reflexively back at her. But the sight of her perfect heart-shaped ass, that ass he had one crystalline memory of grabbing during their brief, but passionate affair, had him weak in the knees. 

He leaned on his locker for support, only to remember, a second too late for his less-than-coordinated limbs to respond, that his locker door was, in fact, still open. He halted his fall with a lurching grab to the door and the resultant bang had Charlene glancing behind her with a wrinkled nose. 

Rick scrambled back up and sneered harder, running his hands through his wavy hair. He tried to make it look cool, but it was a nervous habit, and Charlene might know that, so he stopped. 

It didn't matter anyway, she just turned back with a toss of auburn hair and walked away. He blew out a breath and scowled at himself as he moodily grabbed his books. He should be fine, but he wasn't. His knees were wobbly, his heart was pounding, his brain was fizzing out like a spent firecracker. Rick Sanchez, boy genius extraordinaire, was in over his head. 

 

He hadn't thought it would be that hard, actually dating a girl. Getting her to agree wasn't all that hard, it just required realizing that the cliche he had always heard about was true, no matter how blatantly illogical it was. Girls were into guys that were rude, who acted like they didn't care about anything. 

He had wasted months (let's be honest, years) trying to be nice before he threw up his hands and tried the opposite, and Charlene had started batting her eyes at him within weeks of him starting to roll his eyes at her. It was too easy. Well, everything was too easy to Rick, so that shouldn't have been much of a surprise. 

But actually dating the chick quickly proved more complicated than winning her over had been. They had had a couple of “dates”, and a far fewer, but far more important number of make-out and heavy petting sessions. And each one had been marred by bickering. Rick would get impatient, or would go too far, or would somehow offend the high-strung chick and everything would devolve into mindless cawing at each other that drove Rick crazy. 

But it had taken long enough to get Charlene that Rick had a fair amount of emotional investment in her. Or at least, in the idea of dating her. Or maybe he was just invested in that remarkable ass. Either way, he wasn't about to let her just stomp off for good after their last tiff.

But just resuming the devil-may-care attitude didn't seem like it was working well for either of them. In fact it was making Rick look pathetic, which was unbearable. Rick would have to rethink his strategy. He would figure it out. He knew he would. 

He wandered towards the door of his geography class lost in rumination, then paused before he reached it. It would be a far better use of his time to work on the Charlene problem then listen to the teacher drone about countries he already knew about and would never go to. Like any of them in this rat-trap town were ever going to Indonesia, or Belarus, or wherever. He'd be thinking about her the whole time anyway. 

He didn't need more convincing than that. He never did. School was for chumps, not unparalleled intellects like his, after all. He turned around and meandered calmly out of the building without a second look back 

 

Rick leaned against the wall of the shed on the corner of his parent’s property. Long ago he had claimed the dilapidated heap for his own and filled it with soothing cobbled bits of junk and inspirations. It was his hideaway, precisely as dirty and disorganized as he liked it. He blew out his breath in the chilly air, and thought. 

Maybe he could build her something, play to his strengths. No other boy would ever be able to make her something as impressive as he could. 

But then he thought back to their last argument. Well, if you could call it that. She had called him insensitive and slapped him on the face after he had responded to her frankly trite existential woes with a lewd suggestion. Which honestly was just irrational of her, because even if Mary Anne Lewis was right and all of her academic achievements were just a smokescreen for the fact she was tramp-to-be, just like her mother, then, well, why not just relish it? Take charge of her destiny and all? And most of all, let Rick put his hands up her shirt again? 

But Charlene didn't see things that way. She called him a “thick-headed ape”, and then, ouch. So he had to show he had sensitivity, that he had emotions for her. He hated having to think up words to express his feelings. He rubbed his forehead in frustration. 

What about music? A song? Girls loved that sort of thing. He could play her a song… What if he _built_ her something that could play a song?? That would be way more impressive, she’d love it, and the song could do all the talking about emotions, while he just focused on building it. It was perfect. 

He happily dove into his task, grabbing bits and wire and metal from their hidey-holes. Everything made the most sense when he was making something. He could pour himself into the puzzle and forget all about the messier parts of life. He nudged on the record player by his foot, starting up the well-worn Beatles record on it for some background noise as he worked. And as he listened, he even thought he might already know the perfect song. 

Finally, after a week of feverish work at night and uncertain awkwardness at school, he was done. It had cost him three of his best magnets, months-of-collecting-worth of wire, and numerous cramps and tiny burns from being bent under a magnifying glass putting it all together, but he had made it. 

Rick felt jittery with excitement. As he worked, he had convinced himself more and more of the idea’s infallibility. It was such a monumental thing for a fourteen-year-old to create, anyone could see that. And the song selection was perfect. It was fairly popular, and he increasingly felt it described their situation, and maybe even his feelings, to a T. 

Charlene would love it. 

 

He approached the front door to her house with a cardboard box in his hand and his heart in his throat. Should he have combed his hair? Eh, his hair always looked like a hobo’s anyway. What about the gift, should he have wrapped the box? He didn't have any pretty-colored paper. Oh well, the gift would speak for itself. Literally, hah. 

Rick made himself stop thinking like an idiot as Charlene's mother answered the door. His voice squeaked slightly when he asked for Charlene, and he rounded on himself furiously as the woman left to go fetch her daughter. 

He needed to pull his head out of his ass and get it together. He could do this, this was nothing. He was already manipulating non-Newtonian fluids in his backyard shed, he could manipulate Charlene into giving it another shot. She would be so impressed with his handiwork, with the depths of his emotional exposure in the song, there would be no other choice. 

Charlene came to the door and his mouth went dry at the sight of her freckle-dusted face and hazel eyes beaming into him, like it always did. God she was gorgeous. He cleared his throat,

“Um, hey, Charlene”

He was shooting for gruffly casual, but thought it might not have come across quite right, and anyway she was just staring at him, so he continued in a rush, 

“I-I was thinking about what- what you were saying the other day and, uh, well, I made this for you. Babe,” Rick tacked on at the end after a brief pause, striving for some way to redeem his coolness after a stuttering failure like that.

Charlene raised an eyebrow, and he felt the heat rise to his face as she held out her hand for the box and he handed it over. It would be fine, better than fine. Things were about to be great. 

He held his breath as she opened the box and withdrew his creation. It was about the size of an orange, an irregular-angled, but rounded-edge shape that was as small and sleek as he could possibly get it. 

He was pretty proud of the aesthetics, honestly. He knew how nice it looked was probably almost as important as how well it worked, however dumb the concept might be to him. The plastics were of slightly different colors, but the seams joining its casing were neat and even, the unavoidable bit of exposed metal smooth and polished-looking. Not even a single wire was showing. 

Charlene looked more confused than impressed, and Rick realized immediately, of course, he was an idiot, she didn't know what it was. “H-here,” he said, nervous excitement lacing his voice as he reached out, “Push the button on the side,”

Charlene pushed the button. After a quiet whirling noise, the metal component began to buzz as slightly-tinny, but very-clearly recognizable notes began to emanate from the little contraption.

_I get high when I see you go by, my oh my  
When you sigh my my inside just flies_

Rick’s eyes darted to her face, eagerly taking in her reaction. She seemed surprised, if he had to guess. Her eyes widened slightly as she stared at the singing box. As she listened it would all sink in, he was sure of it. The box continued chirping cheerfully,

_Is it right that you and I should fight every night?_

_Just the thought of you makes nighttime bright, very bright_

_Haven't I the right to make it up girl?_

_It's only love and that is all, why should I feel the way I do?_

_It's only love and that is all, but it's so hard loving you_

As the box wound up the song a cautious grin spread on Rick’s face as he waited for her response. She couldn't possibly say he didn't care, not after he combined the poetry of John Lennon with his own mechanical genius to create this message to her. 

“Well, w-what do you think?” 

It would have been cooler to wait without prompting her, but he was too excited. She chewed on her lip, her brow lowering, and his smile faltered. There shouldn't be that much to think about. 

Finally she looked up at him and his gut lurched at the look in her eye.

“What the hell, Rick? You buy me a music box that tells me how awful it is being with me? What on earth is that supposed to mean?” she said angrily. 

Rick froze, flabbergasted. “I-I-I didn't buy it, I made it,” his pride demanded he point out first. “It- it runs entirely off of magnets, and it, and it plays an entire song. I m-made that out of bits of metal and wire and j-junk, I- I invented something brand-new here, Charlene!”

Charlene rolled her eyes at him and sighed boredly, putting a hand on her hip, “Yeah, sure, I know Rick, you're the smartest kid ever. Not smart enough to think that a music box that complains about how hard it is to be with me might not have been the best choice.” 

She stamped her foot at his stuttering protestations. “Look, I appreciate it, I guess. But I need more than trinkets. I can't be bought off, I need things that are from the heart, you understand?”

Rick just shook his head dazedly, because he didn't understand. Big brain and all, he didn't understand why this was going so poorly. He thought he WAS coming from the heart. The fact that she was important, special, the idea that he could even be in love and how scary that was. The song got that perfectly. And he had spent ages building it. 

But that was all was all there was to it. His plan had utterly failed, and he had been too confident in it to have a contingency plan for this scenario, and he was losing face by the second, so he stopped his useless wool gathering and mumbled, “Whatever, Charlene. Just take the fucking present,” feeling a flicker of gratification at her scandalized gasp. 

He turned and sauntered off, calling “See ya around,” nonchalantly over his shoulder as he walked down her driveway. 

He waited until he heard her front door shut, then ran his hands through his hair furiously. Women. Fucking women. What hope was there for any boy, when even Rick’s best plans fell short? They were deliberately backwards, miserable, confounding things, and Rick was better off without them. 

As he passed the house he glanced at the window to Charlene's room, right next to their ivy lattice, and mused with a smirk. Well, at least he could sneak in and steal his creation back later on. No sense wasting good materials.

**Author's Note:**

> There will be more songfics, for better or worse. All oneshots. But like 90% of them will be Rick/Morty, so don't get the wrong impression. Idk why this one was done first. 
> 
> Thanks for reading guys! Reviews always welcome!


End file.
